History and theory

A dialog from the PhilOfHi list between Irene Zvitka and Haines Brown, December 2000

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> How do we represent history as a human creation, but not the creation
> that humans please?

You mean history is of us but not to our liking? Or do you mean it is about us but not really of our own making? Seems to me, on one level, history is entirely a record of ourselves. But besides recording, historians attempt to provide the context or framework, and within the framework capture the reason for historical occurances.

Was it Roosevelt's parents' fault he became a President with imperialist tendencies, or was he unduly influenced by his uncle at a suceptible age? Was there anything in Roosevelt's life prior to the events under discussion that could have predicted his behaviour? And if there were such predicates would they be the only elements? And could they be used to predict other historical events? Of course not. Makes me think of weather forcasting. We can know rain is coming, we can walk right in the rain but can we tell if we will fall into a puddle?

Seems to me history is entirely seemless, and largely unpredictable. What theory will encompass the degree of unpredictability? And to what precentage? And if you factor unpredictability into a theory how realiable can the theory be?

Consider the circumstances it took to create the current election situation in the USA? What factors would you isolate upon which to form a theory that would fully explain the predicament? How far back in history would you go? To the Declaration of Independence? To George the III or just to Goerge Bush? To 1066? Rome? Entirely up to you and arbitrary. It depends what you want to say about the situation.

> This strike me as a perfectly legitimate classical
> question, the relation of freedom and determinism. I started by
> insisting that it could not be addressed without having defined a
> specific theoretical framework (hence the two models of my initial
> note), and I then went on to suggest that they could only be
> reconciled by representing history as a process.

A theory about process will be about process. One of the things history is process, but somethings about the processes are complete. Dinosaurs are gone. Lives end, and though some influence on the living continues to be felt by the dead (some would argue all influence on the living is because of those that lived before) the possibilities of one entity are complete, serially, everybody lives and dies. If Roosevelt had not existed how different would the events have been? Is this even worth speculating about? Only if as a theorist you would posit some predictability based on one individual's behaviour under unrepeatable, unique circumstances. History does not in fact repeat itself, we only try to draw familiarities from always changing compents.

Unless you begin thinking of the human race as a totality rather then millions of individuals you are faced with recording lives and events of those who make an impact on a significant proporation of a population

> Yes, I'm sensitive to complaints about the theorticization of history,
> but what alternative is there? (another question for you, if you like
> ;-), and I think a quite worthy one).

No theory of history.

Just some totally un qualified reaction to the always stimulating ideas you present.

Irena

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Irena

Your note seems to touch two bases. One appears to be the role of theory in historiography, and the other considers creative action in history. I really fear mixing threads, and so if it is OK with you, I'd like to respond here to only the first issue.

> > Yes, I'm sensitive to complaints about the theorticization of history,
> > but what alternative is there? (another question for you, if you like
> > ;-), and I think a quite worthy one).
>
> No theory of history.

I'm not quite sure how to take your comment. Is it that we really don't need theory at all, but rather we should consider ourselves, as Bloch insisted, as merely virtuous craftsmen? But it is often said that a denial of theory in principle actually means we employ bad theory or it serves to hide one's theory from any critical attention. While this comment does not apply to present company, we can all think of cases where it does apply, and so caution might be best.

Allow me to think out loud, for I have no developed notions on this matter, as important as I think it is. Let me set up some easy targets to get the discussion going.

It seems that Western historiography, by which I (inaccurately) mean historiography that has its roots in the Italian Renaissance and European Enlightenment, stands in sharp contrast to that of the rest of the world. The Renaissance needed a mythologized image of the past to support a critique of the present. It stood in opposition to European Medieval historiography which to a large extent (not entirely) aimed to conserve knowledge of the past in monastic annals, etc. (like a row of funeral urns, as one wag put it). So I will suggest that there are two basic types of historiography, conservative and critical.

Actually, I believe both always coexist to some extent at all times and places. In traditional societies, for example, an Urfather or founding hero served to lift consciousness in the present above the constraint of circumstance. Is this really different in essence than Renaissance historiography? At the same time, we tend to assume that the weight of tradition tends to legitimate. For example, in some countries, there is common law, and the interest in antiques or in genealogy might convey to the individual a certain psychic value. So the point here is that historiography has always served two contradictory purposes, one being conservative and the other critical.

It seems both forms of historiography are primarily concerned with the present, for I don't think conservative historiography is really absorbed by the past any more than critical historiography is by the future. But they perhaps can be distinguished in their opposite attitude toward the present: the conservative approach tends to assert what exists, while the critical approach aims to change it.

Now, why do I go into all this? Because it may be that conservative historiography does not require theory, but does require technical sophistication. Critical historiography, in contrast, is not so hung up on precision, since it aims to transcend the distillation of the past. Because it aims to change what is inherited from the past, it needs to employ theory. So here's another hypothesis to look at.

Now, turning to the question in hand, if these two hypothesis hold water, it seems evident we need to be very clear about whether we presume a conservative historiography or a critical one. To do this, we need to address two questions.

First, is a critical historiography a good thing (if you wish, read political interests into this)? If one denies the legitimacy or importance of a critical historiography, then I guess there's no question that high level theory is only a distraction and perhaps a source of error.

Second, if one accepts a critical historiography, then is it true that it necessarily requires theory? Let me suggest, for the sake of argument, that theory is needed to transcend what exists. It alone allows us to represent a future that differs from the present; it alone explains how elements of the present can be recombined to create a better order, etc.

In hindsight, and in light of how I take Dave Richardson's comment, I suspect all this is rather superficial. First, I doubt one can really say that conservative history is devoid of theory (one always must select facts, and, after all, it is blatantly ideological), and that critical history can ignore erudition or precision (lest it be become only propaganda). The real issue, which I take to be Dave's point, is really the relation of theory and empirical facts.

If I were to pursue this, I'd first want to distinguish theory from what is abstract. I'd use the latter term to refer to the causal relations of empirical specifics. Second, I'd reject out of hand any reference to generalization in history, or at least not allow the term theory to reduce to it, for it seems to contradict human freedom (I'd limit generalizations to short range problems). Perhaps then theory refers to historical forces, which might mean the probability distribution of outcomes, how the empirical dimension constrains the limits and possibilities latent in the present. So here's another issue someone might like to look at.

What other way can we use the term theory? At least I suspect Dave would be happy with the last one, for it insists on a constant connection with empirical facts (although I suspect it is useful and sometimes necessary to discuss, very provisionally, only the facts or only the theory).

Well, I guess my idle speculations have set up enough easy targets ;-).

Haines Brown

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I objected to an attempt to define the actor in history as an individual acting in an external context. However, my objection is raised from a historiographical perspective, not a biographical one. My concern is not for biography, but to define action in history. I posed it as a question, but (naturally), I've some sense of my own answer to that question.

If we start with an implied definition of the individual as such, as a bundle of character traits, as a monad, we then also imply that history is an objective process that is intelligible independently of individuals. I'm objecting to both. My example of the problem was to distinguish an interpretation of the origins of WWII in the Pacific as arising from biography (the actions of Tojo or Roosevelt) or from objective forces (competing imperialisms).

I now suggest an alternative, which is to represent the actor as a historical actor, not as a monad. This requires a difficult imaginative leap, but once we reach the other shore, the landscape is not unfamiliar.

As an aside, let me illustrate. Up until WWII there was a heated debate over parts and wholes, which was a philosophical manifestation of anti-Communism. The consensus at the time, I think, was that there is no conclusive evidence of wholes that cannot be reduced to their parts. The debate died out, however, for it was very clear (such as in the natural sciences) that there were indeed irreducible wholes, and the problem was only their analysis in philosophical terms. In many fields, it was evident that wholes could emerge from the action of parts that don't reduce to the action of those parts. Negentropic processes, for example.

Given this, how do we understand the parts of such a process? Surely just because the part contributes to the emergence of an irreducible whole, it does not make the behavior of the part irrelevant. In a social process, individuality remains crucial even though the outcome can't be explained as its result. Biography explains the characteristics of the individual, and it is individual action that gives rise to history, but history does not reduce to the those individual actions. What kind of relationship is it then? It is the relation of processes, not a functional relation of empirical traits. I am suggesting that we represent the actor in history as a process that is part of a greater process. An emergent process cannot take place without the empirical specifics that constrain it, but it gives rise to am outcome having empirical characteristics that do not reduce to the characteristics of its initial state. Empiricism contradicts historiography!

A confession: I've a hidden agenda. I'm an advocate of world history. What I'm suggesting is that short range history or the actions of individuals cannot be explained in historical terms except as processes that are part of world history. Our capacities for action, our aims, and the effect of our actions cannot be understood except as part of world history.

The other side of the coin of seeing the actor as an historical process terms rather than in terms of biography, is that the actor is defined as part of a process. He is not just a monad having a bundle of characteristics, but an actor who develops as a result of being a historical participant; he is an emergent process. To represent the individual as a process, we define him (a priori, essentially) not only in terms of certain empirical traits, but also as standing in a causal relation that accounts for his development. The individual is defined as a vector process, as the irreducible relation of certain empirical traits and their causal relation with the world process. In conventional historiography, you start by accounting for character traits and then put them into contact to give rise to action, and this makes causal relations accidental, not essential, not definitive.

It is conventional to define the causal relation through which as person develops as a relation of production. A relation of production is the causal relation that accounts for individual development. A group of people who share a relation of production is an important (Marxist) definition of social class. In other words, history arises from class struggle. It is the outcome of individuals striving to develop, to realize their humanity. That's what I was getting at before when I tried to suggest that historical development arises from action in the present, not from potentials inherited from the past.

In sum, I'm recommending a difficult leap, one that defines individuals as processes, as class participants. This does not contradict biography, but merely distinguishes biography, with its focus on the inner dynamic, from historiography, which is more concerned with the outer dynamic. The leap also involves seeing history as the product of all people struggling to develop, rather than in terms of objective forces on one hand or of great men acting on the other.

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Haines Brown <brownh@hartford-hwp.com> wrote:

> Your note seems to touch two bases. One appears to be the role of
> theory in historiography, and the other considers creative action in
> history. I really fear mixing threads, and so if it is OK with you,
> I'd like to respond here to only the first issue.

Fine, of course, however, I do not see the separation of issues as clearly as you do. This maybe because I am not a professional scholar.

> I'm not quite sure how to take your comment. Is it that we really
> don't need theory at all, but rather we should consider ourselves, as
> Bloch insisted, as merely virtuous craftsmen?

Yes and no. Historians are very much technicians attempting to find meaning and glory in statistics. You know about statistics, how they can suit any purpose. A honest technician becomes a virtous man. Theorists, in the field of history, in my opinion must be men of great vision. Absolute generalists because the scope of history is so vast. History encompasses everything.

> But it is often said
> that a denial of theory in principle actually means we employ bad
> theory or it serves to hide one's theory from any critical
> attention.

Perhaps I misunderstand you. Do you mean by theory a construct that can be overlaid over a given set of facts and statistics thereby imposing a context on the data? I do not deny the value of theory, I merely wonder about the practical applications of theory on history. To every degree history is the past. The past in effect self-theorizes itself. What needs to be imposed outside of personal opinion?

> So I will suggest that there are two basic types
> of historigraphy, conservative and critical.

Or is this an evolution of historiography from the conservative to the critical. Who still writes history as they did in Medieval european times? And naturally, I have to question your use of the word 'need'\u2014the need of Renaissance writers. What came first in this era? The re-discovery of Greco-Roman philosophy, or the need to express politically? Both no doubt blended into each other as the discovery of one lead to the questioning of the other.

> Actually, I believe both always coexist

yes they co-exist, original sources remain original. However, seems the writing of history based on original sources has evolved. Makes me wonder what in the Ren. period made the the ancient documents such appropriate analogies for existing circumstances. Was it that these ideas and stories that had laid dormant for centuries, when re-introduced, naturally triggered what resonates in thinking men regardless of the era?

> So the point here is that historiography
> has always served two contradictory purposes,
> one being conservative and the other critical.

I am not sure I understand what you say here. Tradition tends to legitimize? Yes, but tradition is not always as fixed as you seem to imply. Every revolution cracks or breaks some traditions and from the break up or re-arrangement new traditions come. Even the oldest religions absorb change. I don't see how critical and conservative contradict, except by your defintions of such. I suppose by these you mean some inherent progentior rights versus common good?

> It seems both forms of historiography are primarily concerned with the
> > present, for I don't think conservative historiography is really
> absorbed by the past any more than critical historiography is by the > future.

> Now, why do I go into all this? Because it may be that conservative
> historigraphy does not require theory, but does require technical
> sophistication.

I agree with this except I question the purpose of imposing a theory upon the critical approach to hist. Who has the competency to be just about omnipotent?

> Critical historiograpy, in contrast, is not so hung up
> on precision, since it aims to transcend the distillation of the
> past. Because it aims to change what is inherited from the past, it
> needs to employ theory. So here's another hypothesis to look at.

How could one transend, even a distillation of the past. Somehow this suggests creation of entirely new elements out of the old fixed elements, when at best only new combinations of these existing elements can be attempted. It becomes speculation on possibilities rather then theory. Speculation is pure philosophy, if not metaphysics itself. > Now, turning to the question in hand, if these two hypothesis hold
> water, it seems evident we need to be very clear about whether we
> presume a conservative historiography or a critical one. To do this,
> we need to address two questions.
>
> First, is a critical historiography a good thing (if you wish, read
> political interests into this)?

It is only good if the cause is good and the cause is only good if you can foresee its full effects. Can a theory do this?

> If one denies the legitimacy or
> importance of a critical historiography, then I guess there's no
> question that high level theory is only a distraction and perhaps a
> source of error.

Imposed or not special interests will always exist and will make of history, of critical theory, what politicians make of statistics.

> Second, if one accepts a critical historiography, then is it true that
> it necessarily requires theory? Let me suggest, for the sake of
> argument, that theory is needed to transcend what exists.

I don't know about theory. I think there is an abscence of great thinkers. Great thinkers approach the subject, in an open-ended way, without theory and theory is then made of what they think. I am probably wrong, because I only have to think of Einstein's theory to see how the cart can indeed come before the horse. But science, even physics has physical matter, while history seems alot more ephemeral.

It is possible to teach students how to think in great global terms, to see history as past present and future. This is a matter of poltical policy\u2014government's will to teach past their own borders of interest. Does the UN have a great teaching institution?

> It alone
> allows us to represent a future that differs from the present; it alone
> explains how elements of the present can be recombined to create a
> better order, etc.

This assumes we are not living in the most perfect of all possible times. When in fact we always are. Ideals beyond basic biological needs become religion, or like religion. Meanwhile, we are only beginning to understand the full implications of our biology.

> If I were to pursue this, I'd first want to distinguish theory from
> what is abstract. I'd use the latter term to refer to the causal
> relations of empirical specifics. Second, I'd reject out of hand any
> reference to generalization in history, or at least not allow the
> term theory to reduce to it, for it seems to contradict human
> freedom (I'd limit generalizations to short range problems).

I suppose theory is abstract until it is fact.

Irena

---

Irena,

Thanks for your interesting comments. I'm afraid I can't bring much wisdom to the discussion of theory and history, so I'll be brief. It does seem evident, however, that it not easy pinning down just what theory means.

When a newborn baby enters the world, it sees nothing. The brain is stimulated by optical sensations, but it has little idea of what to make of them. Only in time does it construct a mental map of the image of its mother, and from that point on the child can compare its visual sensations against the map. Perhaps theory is like that map: a mental construct that enables us to make facts intelligible.

For example, pollen was not historical fact until three (?) decades ago, but now is of great historical significance. We now enjoy a theory that tells us what to look for and how to interpret it. Your wise comments about overlaying theory on the facts, or regarding our biases, don't seem to apply here. It does not seem that the facts are distorted as they are made meaningful because we have learned how to relate one set of facts to another. In short, some theory might simply mean we know how to relate facts.

In the discussion of action models, I frequently made reference to systems theory. Broadly, that theory classifies types of systems and their associated behaviors with how systems are put together, etc. It is sometimes called a meta-science in that it abstracts from empirical systems to construct some generalizations about them. Now, if we assume for the moment that by this time systems theory is fairly mature, we can apply it to the way societies have organized themselves to gain a better understanding of their behavior. It becomes possible to speak of system maturity, to understand why, for example, system development is associated with individuation, etc. Is there a chance for bias here? Yes, of course, but it does not seem to be much if the science is developed and we apply it carefully.

To generalize, it seems to me that through historical study we (as individuals or as a culture) acquire a certain wisdom about what is significant in history, about how societies work, what questions are meaningful, and what answers are valid. All this is theory. While it may have arisen from the study of facts, it obviously does not reduce to them, and so is non-empirical; it is an emergent mental construction that equips us to approach the world in a meaningful or useful way. Without theory, we are mindless collectors of trivial facts. In modern times (more precisely, after 10th century Europe), the economy has extracted itself from the rest of life to become a sub-system that behaved in a distinctive way, and so we can study the ancient economy, which the ancients themselves could not have attempted. Theory seems a precondition of any historiography beyond the mindless factual accumulation.

Now let me turn to your point about bias. I personally think far too much as been made of it. Often I've seen that great historians have been very biased, and poor historians have not. Gibbon continues to be read, despite his blatant biases, while Green's multivolume histories of England are not, even though most people would not judge him to have been biased. Further, personal biases strike me as relatively harmless compared to the systemic ideological biases of class, and when it comes to this there is no point of insisting we should strive to escape it, for it would like asking us to jump out of our skin. More often than not, I find the ideological perspective of historiography quite evident, and it seems I can react in one of three ways to an ideological position other than my own.

First, I can simply disregard a work's ideological perspective. I might acquire useful understanding or information despite it, or I might so enjoy the skill of the writer as to derive pleasure from the work despite its ideology. Second, I try to compensate for it, to apply a conversion or translation that restructures what I read into a product that is more useful or intelligible. This I actually do quite often, such as in reading the daily news, where I extract an understanding quite other than was intended by the news reporter. Finally, I might drop the work I'm reading altogether, for the factual material has little interest or use except in support of an ideological position. Actually, this seems to happen fairly often. It's like watching a disaster film that so closely follows a pat formula that you can predict how each personality will respond to the crisis; the film becomes so predictable it is irksome, and you turn to something else.

In the present context, it seems we might usefully distinguish between personal bias, which is readily seen and compensated for, and an ideological perspective, which is more pervasive, and harder to identity and manage. But are either really theory? If theory is simply any mental construct we bring to bear on experience, then I suppose they are. But they are only one aspect of theory, and so I'd be very hesitant because I perceive unpleasant biases or disagreeable ideologies, reject all theory, for to do so is to embrace mindlessness. You know the old saying, you can be so open-minded that your brains fall out!

I wonder if instead of the fiction of jumping out of our skin to become mindless automatons processing data in a fashion akin to computers, we should rather be more concerned about making our perspectives explicit, being honest about where we are coming from, being consistent and scientific. This means being more self-critical of our ideological position, not to reject it, but to improve upon it. I don't trust authors who claim to be purely objective and unbiased, for I know that ideal is impossible, and it tends to discredit them right at the beginning.

> suit any purpose. A honest technician becomes a virtuous man. Theorists, in
> the field of history, in my opinion must be men of great vision. Absolute

I would venture to disagree with you here, for can we function at all without theory? While there may be historians whose interest is more in theoretical questions than empirical ones, I don't see why we need to distinguish them. The theoretician must have a keen sensitivity to the facts, even though they are not his focus; the practical researcher must be sensitive to theory, or else his work lacks purpose.

> Or is this an evolution of historiography from the conservative to the
> critical. Who still writes history as they did in Medieval European times?

A conservative writing of history is still done all the time. In my life I've often had to maintain logs, for example, such as is done by a watch on duty. Then there are local historians who aim to record what has occurred rather than interpret it. For example, the historian of a church, a business, or a town. Then there are historians who claim to be conservative (simply tell it wie es eigentlich gewesen), although if inspected closely enough have (certainly like Ranke himself) a hidden agenda.

A youth once had a class text that consisted of a two-volume history of World War II, and at the end of the term asked the teacher what kind of interpretation of the war it offered. It had never occurred to the teacher there should have been one. In fact, I'm sure we would have little difficulty spotting biases or ideological perspectives in such a work, but that was not the main concern of the author nor of the teacher using it. The point of history for him was short-range explanations (causality inferred from a close association of events—note the theory here) and factual accuracy embedded in a broad sweep of the past.

You point out, correctly I think, that the conservative and critical impulses usually co-exist, that a conservative approach does evolve, and that a critical approach does have a conservative attitude toward the facts. My comment that the two have a contradictory attitude toward the present referred to their intentions, one being to preserve it and the other to change it. My point was to suggest that one needs to employ some theoretical apparatus in order to escape the tyranny of the present, and so theory is more associated with a critical historiography. As a broad generalization, I still think this has some truth, but I believe you might correctly imply that a conservative historiography, because it does slowly evolve, must entail at least some theory. In fact, I admit as much above.

> I agree with this except I question the purpose of imposing a theory upon
> the critical approach to hist. Who has the competency to be just about
> omnipotent?

Perhaps you will expand on this point. I'm a democrat in that I believe every man should be his own (critical) historian! That is, everyone should assess their present situation with the aim of seeing if there could not be some change for the better. It seems to me this is fundamental to real democracy, not simply deciding who will rule you. My point was that people can't very well do this if they can't grasp what alternatives the present situation might offer and how best to work toward them\u2014that is, they must employ theory. I've no idea how omnipotence (omniscience?) comes in. In the labor movement, for example, one always seeks to change things for the better and one has some vision of the future, but without any claim of either omnipotence (one's means are limited; you do the best you can; some you win and some you loose; the point is the dignity won through struggle), or omniscience (you hope you know where you are going, but things never quite turn out as you hope).

> How could one transcend, even a distillation of the past. Somehow this
> suggests creation of entirely new elements out of the old fixed elements,
> when at best only new combinations of these existing elements can be
> attempted. It becomes speculation on possibilities rather then theory.
> Speculation is pure philosophy, if not metaphysics itself.

Won't belabor this beyond suggesting that we construct not only the relations of facts, but the facts themselves. My point was to distinguish between an uncritical acceptance of conventional facts and their relations, and a critical attitude that invents new facts, disposes of old facts, and establishes new relations. I'm not being unscientific here at all: A century ago, the bumps on one's head were psychologically revealing (phrenology), but today are irrelevant, no longer grist for the historiographical mill. On the other hand, pollen is a new fact in the sense that what was trivia before becomes historical data today. The fluidity of the facts implies the fluidity of their relations.

> It is only good if the cause is good and the cause is only good if you can
> foresee its full effects. Can a theory do this?

My comment simply was to suggest that some people like the status quo, and some don't. By good, I was not speaking of a set of moral values, but whether something strikes one as desirable. Sorry for the confusion. Further, whether a cause is good seems to me also a question of whether you find it desirable, and I'm sure what one person finds desirable another person will not. In any social project, the obvious question is whose ox will be gored, not whether it is morally appealing, for morality tends to accommodate itself to interests. Also, I'm not sure I would so make morality depend on predicting outcomes. We have plenty of moral principles that are good in themselves, regardless of outcome. Love thy neighbor as thyself I don't believe is based on outcomes. There's a whole literature on amicitia vs. agape, such as Life against Death (in the UK, Lion and the Unicorn, if I recall). In a more down-to-earth example, I advocate democracy, not because it necessarily works better, but because it is the only political method that in my mind really supports the dignity of the individual. I suspect you probably agree on these points.

> come before the horse. But science, even physics has physical matter,
> while history seems alot more ephemeral.

Really? I don't know I'd necessary agree with this distinction. I'd ask just what you mean by physical matter. I'd also ask you to explain what you mean by ephemeral. But disregard if you feel my questions are marginal to the thread.

> This assumes we are not living in the most perfect of all possible times.
> When in fact we always are. Ideals beyond basic biological needs become
> religion, or like religion. Meanwhile, we are only beginning to understand

Wow. I've been arguing against this Panglossian point all along! Only if we assume positive entropy can we say that this is the best of all possible worlds, for it seems to imply that we confront the world in which we live as a given. On the other hand, if we assume that history is negentopic, that it's an emergent process, then it suggests that we actively constructor the present and are therefore responsible for it and therefore must seek to change it. The point of seeing history as an emergent process is to insist on our responsibility for this world and for the future that arises from it. Only if I wished to preserve the status quo, and very few people in this world do, would I suggest that we are not responsible for the present order, and, as bad as it is, it is the best we can expect. This is precisely the argument of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, even though they are in fact the principle agents in a revolution of the world's condition through globalization.

In sum, I think there are enormous moral implications in whether we accept the legitimacy or importance of a critical historiography and therefore, arguably, with the status of theory. The theory needed to represent the present as a process we actively constructed flows out of a commitment to democracy and a sense of moral responsibility for the condition of our world. [soapbox off] > Thanks again, I take myself as the voice of ignorance within this
> discussion.
>
> Irena

Well, I join you there. But on many of these questions, it is not so much a matter of expertise as it is of common or good sense. Some historians have prided themselves on being free of theory, but I'm afraid that means they are liberated from any good sense. In my neighborhood bar, everyone knows this is almost the worst of all possible worlds, and generally people agree on what would constitute a better world. But they don't expect to change it for the better because they know they lack power compared to the few and mighty who do. I'd say there's plenty of theory embedded in such an attitude, and little evidence of ignorance. Compared to them, historians are a privileged elite and so have far more responsibility for striving for the good, and yet far less good sense than the norm.

Haines